The first purchase was done by Geetha Shivakumar, vice-chairman of SRM Ramapuram Campus.

The Velachery store is the group’s eighth outlet in Tamil Nadu and 82nd worldwide. “The company plans to increase its worldwide retail network by targeting to complete 120 stores by the year 2013, of which 20 will be in Tamil Nadu,” Ahamed said.

The new showroom showcases the exclusive brands of Malabar Gold & Diamonds such as Divine- Indian Heritage Jewellery, Era-Uncut Diamond Jewellery, Mine-Diamonds Unlimited, Ethnix-Handcrafted Designer Jewellery, Starlet-Kid’s Jewellery and Precia-Precious Gem Jewellery. The showroom also displays silver articles and premium watch brands like CK, Titan, Tommy and others that come with international warranty.

“Surya, the popular film hero in South Indian film industry, is our brand ambassador in Tamil Nadu. Apart from our existing showrooms at Chennai, Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Madurai, Thanjavur and Dharmapuri, the company plans to open other showrooms shortly at Hosur, Vadapalani Ramanathapuram, Vellore, Kumbakonam, Tirunelveli, Nagercoil, Trichy, Tuticorin, Tiruvannamalai and Pondicherry in 2013. We intend to increase the number of showrooms to 35 in the state by the end of 2015,” said V.S. Shafeek, regional director for Tamil Nadu.

All products sold at Malabar Gold & Diamonds come with a detailed and transparent price tag with details like gross weight, stone weight, making charge, stone charge and net weight, enabling customers to understand the product pricing all by themselves. Malabar Gold & Diamonds’ value-added services include lifelong free maintenance, one-year free insurance coverage and buyback guarantee for all its ornaments.

The jeweller’s “gold purchase scheme” enables its customer to book gold on a monthly basis and to hedge against rising gold prices. The booking will carry an additional bonus benefit when the customers buy the ornaments.

As a part of its corporate social responsibility initiatives, Malabar Gold & Diamonds has earmarked a portion of its turnover for charitable activities under the aegis of the Malabar Charitable Trust. Medical Charity, which was started during 1999, is providing lifesaving drugs to the poor. Malabar Housing Charity, which was started in 2004 with the objective of building homes for the poor and underprivileged, has so far built more than 5,770 houses.

Ahamed and Surya had announced their latest CSR initiative of the brand, a commitment of educational scholarship under its “Empowering Education, Empowering Womanhood” initiative that provides educational scholarship for girl students across India.